Oct13

Early Sprouts for two

When I shared my copy of the book, Early Sprouts: Cultivating Healthy Food Choices in Young Children, with a nutritionist friend she got very excited about the possibilities, but then her job changed and she no longer works directly with children. Did that stop her? Read on...

I am doing Early Sprouts with my neighbor Sydney (4 years old) every Saturday afternoon. We did the initial taste tests and we've done five or six of the sessions, with the activity and then the cooking back to back. It takes about an hour. We've made couscous castles with green peppers, Chinese green beans, butternut squash pancakes (too wet but yummy), yogurt dip, and pasta with sauce made from cherry tomatoes. I love it. I took photos of the plants in the garden in different stages and made cards out of them and at the beginning of each class, she sorts them into piles by vegetable and then puts the cards for each vegetable in order from sprout to plant to flower to small fruit to large unripe fruit to ripe fruit, or whatever applies to the vegetable. I also took photos of the compost pile.

Wish I could send you some of our raspberries.

Young gardener touches bean plant

What she's begun with one child she can use to inform her teaching with more, in future years. The materials can be used every year too—each following year will need less set-up time.

Read more about the Early Sprouts program at

http://www.earlysprouts.org/

Thanks for the inspiration Bonnie!

Peggy

Published: Oct-13-09 | 0 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Oct01

Favorite smells--stories and activities

I love the way two-year-olds inexpertly sniff, to sense an odor. They crinkle up their nose and snort, or gasp, and blink their eyes, not quite putting it all together to inhale through their nose. Yet they have an expert sense of smell—nothing comforts them like their favorite “lovey”, a much worn toy or blanket that has achieved a certain smell.

Lilac blooms What did your grandmother’s house smell like—boxwood bushes along the sidewalk and old feather pillows on the window seat like mine? I loved the smell of those bushes but my father thought they smelled like cat urine! My great aunt used to light her late husband’s cigars because the smell brought his presence closer. Smelling muddy ooze left by a flooding creek brought the memories of my childhood closer, reminding me of watching the pattern of water-flow past overfull creek banks. The scent of lilac flowers reminds me of my childhood home too.

Scientists study the way smells affect people and our perceptions of smells. In the October Early Years column in Science and Children, I write about a smelling activity using lemons, cinnamon, onions, and coffee beans. In my ten+ years of using this activity, I have never had a student who was allergic to any of those foods. There is always a first time so I check every class.

Here are a few more ideas for engaging students’ sense of smell as they explore the world. Please teach the Safe Smelling method of wafting (waving) an odor towards your nose with your hand instead of sniffing directly from a container.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

Cinnamon Shapes, a smell recipe.

½ cup of cinnamon

½ cup of applesauce

2 Tablespoons of white school glue

Ground cinnamon lifts into the air very easily so monitor students closely as they slowly add the powder to the other two ingredients. Have the children touch each ingredient and talk about how it feels. Is it dry? Wet? Mix all three ingredients together and roll out onto wax or parchment paper to about 5 mm thick. Have children use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Roll out the scraps again and cut more shapes. Poke a hole near the edge of each shape so when they are dry, you can put a loop of ribbon through the hole to hang the shape. Youngest children can just make a pancake shape from a ball of dough. Even after completely dry (air dry for several days) the cinnamon smell is strong. This recipe makes about six small shapes.

Smelling, then planting herbs

Fennel plants are beautiful and delicious. What if you had to live in a small space for a long time with no windows to let in fresh air? Astronauts living in space breathe the same air over and over. A machine cleans the air and tries to keep the right balance of gases. NASA has many ideas for science activities, including one about using our sense of smell to identify herbs and spices at http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/en/kids/enose_do1.shtml We can not be sure what's in a container so it’s best to always smell substances the "scientific way". Hold the open container about six inches away from your face, and with your free hand fan the air over the container toward you. The smell from the substance in the container will be mixed in the air and you will get a gentle sample of the substance—not enough to sting your nose or make your eyes water.

Some herbs are winter hardy in many regions and can be planted in the fall: oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, and garlic bulbs. The children can rub the plants’ leaves to release the smell, and plant them outside to make a “smelling” garden. After the last frost date in spring (also see the USDA plant hardiness map), plant tender herbs such as basil, fennel, and dill. Much more can be learned from The Herb Society of America’s Essential Guide to Growing and Cooking with Herbs, edited by Katherine K. Schlosser (Louisiana State University Press 2007). See the society’s website at: http://www.herbsociety.org/

Read these books aloud to open up discussion and introduce vocabulary to your class:

&Dog Breath: Horrible Trouble With Hally Tosis by Dav Pilkey (Blue Sky Press 1994). Young children may not understand the title’s play on words but they will get the humor of a dog with smelly breath saving the day. Ask your class, “When is our sense of smell useful?”

&The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss, Marc Simont (Illustrator) (HarperCollins 1949). Children can guess what the animals are smelling but they will be surprised!

&Smelling Things (Rookie Read-About Science) by Allan Fowler (Childrens Press 1991). An easy reader introduction to the sense of smell. Fowler’s books pair simple, pertinent details about the topic with informative photographs.

&Two Eyes a Nose and a Mouth by Roberta Intrater (Cartwheel Books 1995). In a book full of photographs and rhyming text celebrating the variety in human faces, one page with repeated photos of just one face catches our attention, asks us to “imagine how dull the world would be, if everyone looked like you or me” and reminds us “…the variety is just fine.” Young children will enjoy pointing to the part of our body that we sense smells with, or see/hear/taste with.

&What Can I Smell? by Sue Barraclough (Raintree 2005). Opening with the question, “What is your favorite breakfast smell?”, this book invites discussion of familiar smells.

Your class might want to write and illustrate a book about odors they have smelled—their favorites and the ones they do not appreciate. Share your experiences with sense of smell activities....make a comment!

Peggy

Published: Oct-01-09 | 1 Comment | 0 Links to this post

Sep22

Books about fall leaves, inspired by the autumn equinox

Do deciduous tree leaves in your area change color before they fall? On the occasion of the autumn equinox, here are a few books about trees and fall leaf colors that I have enjoyed reading to my students when we discussed the season’s change from summer to fall:

& Fresh Fall Leaves by Betsy Franco, Shari Halpern (Illustrator) (Scholastic 1994). A pair of children plays in fallen leaves in this simple early reader. Children love to share their own stories of playing in fallen leaves.

& I Am a Leaf by Jean Marzollo, Judith Moffatt (Illustrator) (Scholastic 1998). An early reader introducing the function of tree leaves.

& Red Leaf Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1991). Colors! Maple tree lifecycle information! And an appendix with background knowledge for adults to read and share.

& A Tree Is Growing by Arthur Dorros, S. D. Schindler (Illustrator) (Scholastic 1997). Read in sections so young children are not overwhelmed with new information—perhaps a few pages each month as you follow the changes in a tree in your schoolyard. Many details of tree growth and life cycle are explained in sidebars, including photosynthesis.

And here is a new one, published this fall, which I look forward to sharing with my classes:

& Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk, Sherry Neidigh (Illustrator) (Sylvan Dell Publishing 2009).

Tree leaf shape matching, counting from 10 to 1 (you will have to invent your own page for zero), and information about plant parts and animals that eat (parts of) trees—there’s a lot of natural science in this beautifully illustrated book. On the pages for numbers 3 and 2, the counting switches from the number of leaves to the number of points on the leaves, and to the number of leaves in the group that fall together—a fun change in pattern for fours and older who are listening closely but possibly confusing for others. The Sylvan Dell website has teaching activities to go with the book, including a list of the animals pictured in the book: bear, beaver, beetle, bird, butterfly, cat, chipmunks, deer, dog, elk, frog, grasshopper, lizard, moose, owl, possum, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, and turtle. Perhaps the children can count how many animals they see in the illustrations as we read.

Tell us about a book on fall leaves that you use in your program by clicking on the word “Comments” below. The anti-spammer “capcha” box may not register your comment the first time you click “Submit Comment”—please type in the new capcha code that appears and submit again.

Happy Fall!

Peggy

Published: Sep-22-09 | 2 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Aug29

Planting this fall for spring time blooms

I’m planning a fall gardening activity now, before school starts, and the first step is to mark my calendar to buy spring flowering bulbs before the end of September. Seasonal changes vary across the many climates in the United States. If you get temperatures below 40*F for extended periods of time, you can plant these bulbs too. If not, go to the Tag Cloud menu on the left and click on "Growing Plants" to see the September 15, 2008 post with a link to growing other types of bulbs.

Cover of September 2009 Science and Children Read the activity about planting

spring-flowering bulbs in the

Early Years column in the September

issue of Science and Children, the

National Science Teachers Association

elementary school journal.

Teacher and child planting bulbs If all your students are years beyond the exploring-with-their-mouth stage then they can plant my favorite flower, daffodils or jonquils. If there is any chance that a student might bite into a bulb, buy Camassia spp. (also called Camas, Quamash, and Wild Hyacinth) bulbs which are a safe plant to eat (although I never have). Check out plant toxicity online using the lists for unsafe and safe plants at the California Poison Control System at http://www.calpoison.org/hcp/KNOW%20YOUR%20PLANTS-plant%20list%20for%20CPCS%2009B.pdf before making garden choices. And most importantly, know your students and be watchful.

Sing a song before and after planting bulbs, and all winter long while wondering if the bulbs really will sprout.

Act out the following song while you sing it, to the tune of the traditional song “Jack in the Box”.

Spring flowering bulb, (children curl face down on floor, hiding face)

So safe in the ground,

Way down inside, your little dirt mound, (hands curve over head)

Spring flowering bulb so quiet and still,

Won’t you sprout up? (heads up and jump up, stretch arms up high)

Of course I will!

Do you have a favorite book about planting flowering bulbs? Both non-fiction and fiction that ties into the science topic are useful. Here are some that have been successful in my classes:

BA Flower Grows by Ken Robbins. 1990. Dial Books.

The book follows the growth of an amaryllis bulb through photos.

BFrom Bulb to Daffodil by Ellen Weiss. 2007. Children's Press (CT).

This excellent book includes plant structure details through photography and introduces some vocabulary so it can be useful for English language learners as well as early readers. I wish the book did not use the word “sleeping” instead of “leaf senescence” to describe the leaf and flower die-back because young children can learn, and like to use, big words that are more precise. “Senescence.” I clap and say it to help myself remember: sen-nes-ence, (sə nes′-əns).

BThe Life Cycle of a Flower by Molly Aloian and Bobbie Kalman. 2004. Crabtree Publishing Company.

Photographs reveal the details of flower structures and plant parts and the text describes seed production and other ways plants reproduce.

BInvestigate Plants by Sue Barraclough. 2009. Heinemann Library.

With a question and answer format, this book asks readers to answer before turning the page.

BPlanting a Rainbow by Lois Elhert. 1988. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

This classic shows bulbs in the ground before sprouting and when blooming.

What seasons do you experience? Do your students remember the way it rained and rained last spring or the big snow that happened as long as 1/4 their lifetime ago? Here are some books for discussing the cycle of seasons and the passage of time with young children:

B Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming Candace Fleming and Stacey Dressen-McQueen. 2003. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

This story about tough times in post World War II Holland is based on the experiences of the author’s mother who sent boxes to a family in Holland.

B Spring: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur, illustrated by Leslie Evans. 1999. Clarion Books.

Spring from A to Z, each page an acrostic poem beginning with the letters of the alphabet. Your class may want to write their own acrostic poem about a word related to the season. The series includes Winter, Summer, and Autumn.

B What Comes in Spring by Barbara Horton, illustrated by Ed Young. 1992. Knopf.

In this story a mother relates the family’s milestones to the seasons.

B When This Box is Full by Patricia Lillie, illustrated by Donald Crews. 1993. Greenwillow Books.

Children love to guess what the girl will put in the box next to represent the month (one object per month). It reminds me of The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown in that it says what is important to a child about a time of year. For me it would be ice, a heart, seeds, a kite, sunscreen, swimming pool, a novel, tomatoes, school supplies, birthday cake, pumpkins, and a candle. What would you and your class choose?

B A Year in the City by Kathy Henderson, illustrated by Paul Howard. 1996. McGraw-Hill.

Some seasonal changes are specific to urban environments: snow grey with car exhaust, Chinese New Year parades, and city park garden blooms.

Share the seasonal books you find useful by posting a comment below. Hope you get to plant with your class!

Peggy

Published: Aug-29-09 | 2 Comments | 0 Links to this post

Jul17

“I had a carrot for breakfast.”

“I had a carrot for breakfast.” No, not me, this was a young child, a participant in the Early Sprouts program. Young children’s connection between growing food and appreciating it at the table is explored in the article “’Early Sprouts’: Establishing Healthy Food Choices for Young Children” by Karrie A. Kalich, Dottie Bauer, and Deirdre McPartlin in the July 2009 issue of NAEYC’s Young Children. This article serves as an introduction for early childhood teachers who want to do a similar “from garden-to-table” project and link it to nutrition education. I’m going to get the book, Early Sprouts: Cultivating Healthy Food Choices in Young Children from Red Leaf Press where the ideas are further developed and try the recipes! Sample recipes are available at the Early Sprouts website, http://www.earlysprouts.org/

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

The author says that they teach children that taste preferences can change. They say “I like it a lot!” “I like it a little bit,” and “I don’t like it yet” to indicate strong positive, neutral, and negative or unfamiliar reactions to foods. And their students pick up and use these expressions.

Here’s my taste preference change story:

Once upon a time a friend brought me some spring rolls she made in the Vietnamese tradition, heavy on cilantro (an herb I had not yet eaten). My first bite I spit out, thinking that some non-food item had gotten mixed up in the spring rolls because I was tasting some kind of petroleum flavor. I soon had many more tastes of the cilantro leaf in Indian, Latin American, and more Vietnamese cooking--although I pushed it aside, I got small tastes. At some unnoted point I began thinking of it as a food flavor and now I love it and use it often. What exactly happened in my brain?

The Early Sprouts program is on-going, collecting scientific data on how growing food can enhance young children’s health through changing food preferences.

For more help in gardening with young children, the online newsletter, Kids Gardening News from the National Gardening Association has tips for gardening, grant searches, and workshops. Find out what is happening in your area!

I’m going to try again to garden with the children and teachers in the programs where I’m a science teacher. This time I'll try using a container with a water reservoir and plant peas and greens in September.

Peggy

Published: Jul-17-09 | 3 Comments | 139 Links to this post

Jun21

Food safety in gardening

Read "Safety First" by Sarah Pounders and you can reassure your director and students’ parents that you are informed about how to avoid potential health hazards in eating food from a school garden. Did you guess that washing hands is one of the safety steps to take?

Sarah writes, “Grow it, know it, try it … love it! Educators and parents across the country are using this philosophy to get young gardeners hooked on fruits and vegetables.” Children in my classes take to gardening even when it’s a new experience. The crops that we can grow and harvest before the end of school include snap peas, chives, oregano and other herbs, and strawberries. In a small (1m x 3m) raised bed garden there is room for just a few plants, enough so every child gets a taste of what we grow.

Some children only enjoy gardening if they are not getting dirty

Children seem to observe most closely when planting or watering. Some try hard to keep their clothes and shoes clean, sometimes because of personal preference and sometimes because of parental warnings. To keep it a positive experience, I try to help them limit the mess. Child-size tools can help them control where the dirt goes. How do you handle this in your garden?

Maintaining even a container garden requires a commitment to water and weed. Neglect is the main difficulty faced by the gardens at my schools (I’m not at each school every day). Gardens do best with some daily attention—not hours and hours but at least a few minutes to water when needed, look for “wildlife”, or tie a plant to a support. The rich environment of the school garden is under-used. Sometimes the peas children planted in a raised bed don’t grow taller than a few inches because children were allowed to climb up into and through the bed to look through the fence. Other times children are not made aware of the Cabbage White butterfly caterpillars chewing up collard leaves. Without adult encouragement to attend the garden, zinnia seedlings may dry up rather than sprout up.

I need some advice on how to enlist other teachers to help the children water at least a few times a week, and spend a few minutes talking about any changes. Or maybe I should be planting hardier plants!

Tell me what to try,

Peggy

Published: Jun-21-09 | 2 Comments | 1 Link to this post

Mar07

Seed sprouting, activity and observation

It’s fun for children to plant seeds in a special container, but it can be hard to remember to water them, leading to disappointment if the plants don’t survive. Planting grass seed in some bare spots on any lawn is just as satisfying, perhaps more so because with time it will be hard to say which grass plant is the “one” they planted, and therefore they can claim the success of all.

Seeds which are often successful in the classroom include:

Mung bean seeds. These small green beans grow into the bean sprouts in Asian foods. They sprout quickly in water or in soil.
Grass seeds.
Mixed bird seed. Many brands contain peanuts—are there any children in your class with an allergy to peanuts?

Note of Caution! Avoid using kidney beans or fava beans. Kidney beans, when raw or slightly cooked, have a high concentration of the naturally occurring toxin, phytohaemagglutinin. In people who have inherited a deficiency of a certain blood enzyme, eating fava beans can cause favism, a type of severe anemia. Children with this deficiency may be especially affected. See the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety site and the Cornell University, Department of Animal Science for additional details.

Here are some ideas about where children can sprout seeds,

Outside in a garden.
Indoors inside a plastic bag.
Indoors in a clear container of soil polymers (sometimes called “water crystals”), a polymer that absorbs water and has a clear, jelly-like consistency so root growth can be easily seen.
Grass seeds are often grown as “hair” on a “head” made of a small cup of dirt with a face drawn on it. Other materials for the head include a nylon stocking foot with the seeds and dirt tied into a ball inside, and empty food containers with stickers forming the face.

After children have had some experience sprouting seeds, a simple experiment can be set up to see if varying the amount of water (which also controls the amount of air) affects sprout growth. Children may be able to design and set up the experiment, depending on their age and experience with seed sprouting and plant growth.

Label three clear cups (see the photo below) to indicate the amount of water to be maintained in each cup. (Most three-year-olds recognize the blue color in the labels as water, and we discuss how the color is a symbol for water—the water we’re using is really clear.)
Add the water and draw a line around the cup indicating the level to be maintained.
Each scientist adds mung bean seeds to the cup that they feel is the best environment for successful sprouting. Some children put seeds into certain cups because their friend did, or because no one else did, not because they are thinking about what will happen. (It’s a fine line between talking about experimental design so much that the excitement disappears while waiting for action, and trying to make sure the children’s choices are motivated by some thinking about the needs of seeds.) Then additional seeds are added (by an uninterested party!) to make the number of seeds equal in each cup.
Have the children draw the 3 cups and contents.
Tell the children that the cups are the same, the number of seeds is the same, and the location of the cups is the same, and ask them what is different? Most of the children will be able to identify the different amounts of water but few (if any) will comment on the seeds’ access to air.
The seeds will sprout within a week and by the second week it will be evident which cup provides the needed environment. Maintain the marked water levels by adding a little if necessary.

(Spoiler alert: stop reading here if you don’t want to know the results of this experiment before you try it yourself.)

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

No change will have occurred in the cup with no water, the cup with a lot of water will have sprouted and rotting beans, the cup with a little water will have bean sprouts with bright green leaves above the water and roots in the water. Discussion of personal experiences with “too much water” and drawing the results may make the children aware of how access to air is important for plant growth.

What development towards understanding concepts such as, what is alive, needs of seeds and plants, and what is air, have you seen in your class?

Peggy

Published: Mar-07-09 | 0 Comments | 1 Link to this post

Feb12

Spring flowering bulbs planted where they can be seen

Are the daffodils blooming yet at your school? My across-the-street neighbors get about 6 more hours of direct sunlight on their front yards in February and March than I do, so I always have a preview of what nature happening will be coming next to my yard. Their daffodils have fat buds now in the middle of February, and the earliest crocuses are already blooming. Some years they wear caps of snow as we get winter and spring weather in turns. Every year spring flowering bulbs struggle to sprout and bloom right in the spot near our steps where my daughter always bounces her ball. The sprouts get smashed down but come back every year.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

It can be hard to find a spot in a school yard where children do not step, walk, run, dance, or jump. At one school the best place for planting lies within the playground fence where years of wood chip mulch application have produced a deep organic soil. The flowers may get picked or stepped on, but first they are noticed because the children planted them where they play everyday instead of in a border outside of their territory. A gentle reminder to “go around” serves to protect the blooms while not destroying the children’s freedom to play. The teachers don’t worry too much about the children stepping on the bulb sprouts—they have survived many years of children.

Peggy

Published: Feb-12-09 | 0 Comments | 33 Links to this post

Feb07

Planting peas--who will help students record the growth?

I’m wondering what crops your class grows—Peas? Collards? Cilantro? Zinnias? Marigolds?

Planting peas on President’s Day has been the first item on my planting list for many years, and is the topic of the Early Years column in the February 2009 issue of Science and Children.

From NSTA The Early Years Blog

In USDA Plant Hardiness temperature zone 7a (see map), February is the earliest time I can plant this cool-weather crop. But this year with temperatures varying from 21*F to 51*F in the same week, I’m never sure if the children will be able to plant on days that I’m at their school. Results have been mixed. One year we had enough pea pods for every child to try one. They loved the crunch! Another year every pea shoot was eaten to a stub, perhaps by voles? Then there was the year there was so little rain and not enough human water-ers that the pea plants were stunted and produced only a few pods.

One of the joys for teachers who have one class is being able to develop a close relationship, and to be there for all the teachable moments. As a “push-in” science teacher, I’m not in the class the next day so I can’t immediately follow up on the spider that was found behind the blocks, or assist the children’s daily observations of a pea seed sprouting in a bag. (But I do get to fine-tune my teaching by trying it out on many classrooms with different populations and different curriculums.) The Fall 2008 issue of The Science Educator (Volume 17, Issue 2) discusses how the Center for Science Education at Education Development Center, Inc. invited researchers and practitioners to come together to think about the best models for teaching science in elementary schools—by the classroom teacher, by a science specialist, or a mixture of those arrangements. As scientists do, they first talked to define their terms, to better communicate with each other. This research is exciting because whenever education researchers mix it up there will be new information for teachers to use in the classrooms as we work towards using the best practices.

One way to share the results of seed sprouting is to have a brief class observation and drawing time every day. Date the drawings and encourage students to write or dictate their descriptions. Posting the drawings outside the classroom lets others follow the progress of your class’s discoveries.

Peggy

Published: Feb-07-09 | 0 Comments | 38 Links to this post

Nov08

Corn ears--examine and measure

“Why is corn used as a decoration in the fall in the United States?” asked a student’s grandmother. She is originally from Estonia where she said seasonal decorative include straw weavings, hung as symbols to bring a good harvest in the next year. I don’t know when it became popular to hang ears of multicolored corn (Zea mays) as decoration in the United States but it may come from the harvesting of dried corn in the fall. Whatever the origin of this decoration, as symbols of a good harvest, or wishes for such in the coming year, by decorating with varieties that don’t usually appear on our plates we expose children to a variety of corn ears. The variety in corn is interesting to children and prepares them to study genetics when they are older. Worldwide, the word “corn” can refer to any local grain.

Photo by Keith Weller, in the photo gallery on the Agricultural Research Service website.

Young children love to ‘dissect’ ears of fresh or dried corn and can learn new words while learning plant structure—first the husk, then the silk, then the harder job of picking the kernels off the cob. Place a variety of dried corn cobs in a bin or sensory table and allow children to take them apart. See the November issue of Science and Children to read about examining and measuring corn ears in The Early Years column.

Maybe in the spring you'll plant Zea mays with your class.

Peggy

Published: Nov-08-08 | 0 Comments | 518 Links to this post

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